


Dysphoria

by Sansael



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Others will be added - Freeform, Probably triggering for some people, Reincarnation, This is supposed to be sad and dark, Underage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sansael/pseuds/Sansael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gandalf hoped he would never witness another reincarnated friend to be so lost to not know what to do with their life. As it turned out, it was a fool's hope. Though Elrond's life never made a bad turn, it was Elrond who brought to Gandalf those whose lives, it seemed, were made solely of bad turns.</p><p>A continuation to alkjira's amazing work 'Another World'. She kindly trusted me with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alkjira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alkjira/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Another World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020690) by [alkjira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alkjira/pseuds/alkjira). 



> I am very nervous about this work, as I don't know much about mental issues, and if I got/will get anything wrong, I do apologize, Feel free to point me my mistakes.
> 
> Also I don't know how regular the updates will be, because my life in the Uni is a living hell.

Centuries and then millennia passed. Epochs changed, the lands shifted and reshaped themselves. The distinction between races lessened until they all were one.

The maps were different now.

Languages evolved until they were unrecognizable.

And Gandalf the White had seen it all.

He watched the sun shine a little bit dimmer and the moon become a little more distant, and the air a lot thinner than it used to be.

He watched people he used to know to be born and die again.

Sometimes Gandalf the White thought that he didn’t have a purpose anymore, that the world no longer needed him. In a way, it was truth. Nowadays the world went without his meddling, and, oh, he missed that. But the last immortal creature never complained in his life about... well, his life, so he wasn't about to start now.

Instead he lived a travelling life, helping wherever he could. And he made his new mission searching for reincarnated souls and helping them find balance. Because it truly messed one's head to suddenly wake up with a whole new set of memories, where the said one often enough died in a gruesome battle. The old wizard watched some of his old friends to not cope with the recollections of their previous lives and succumb into depression, some to even end their lives.

Those were most hard to witness and Gandalf was adamant to never let another friend become lost if he could help it.

Sometimes even if his help was successful, he still had to lose people prematurely.

He had seen Dori and Ori step on a mine during the Second World War.

But not all of lives of the reborn ones were tragic. When Gandalf found Elrond (Alfred Rodgers, a doctor in training), the young man with a dark ponytail met him with an embrace and greeted him as if they never parted.

Gandalf lit his pipe and watched the former elf become one of the best psychiatrists in the country.

He though that maybe this time around he wouldn't have to watch another tragedy occur.

As it turned out, it was a fool's hope. Though Elrond's life never made a bad turn, it was Elrond who brought to Gandalf those whose lives, it seemed, were made solely of bad turns.

***

"Gandalf, I need to meet with you. You would like to know about this."

"What the urgency, Elrond?"

"You will know when we meet."

"Very well. Expect me to come for dinner today."

When the very same evening Gandalf, as promised, came to Elrond's place, he didn't expect the doctor to be this grim.

"Who?" He asked without preamble. His friend frowned and put two files on the table before the old man.

"Sit down, and I'll tell you all I know."

Gandalf did as was told and opened files. Those were what seemed to be personal cases on two young boys.

"Adam Collins and James Tyler. Both of them are in the psychiatric clinic. 14 and 9 years old respectively. Adam was admitted half a year ago after murdering his school teacher. Only recently they let him out of his room into the common area."

Gandalf made a humming noise, studying the boy's face. There was something familiar in that severe frown of his.

"James was admitted also half a year ago, but with entirely different diagnosis. Social withdrawal, self-induced starvation," the second boy indeed seemed to be far too thing for someone so young, "dysphoria, problem sleeping. And there is one common symptom that they share. They both have dissociative identity disorder."

Former elf paused, letting the information sink in.

"Who are they?"

The doctor didn't give straight answer, instead continued describing the boys' situation.

"They had never met each other in their lives, and yet when they met for the first time in the common area two weeks ago they instantly knew one other. By the names that the doctors were sure to be just figments of their imagination, no less."

Gandalf felt as if someone drenched him with ice water. He thought he already knew the answer to his question.

"Who are they?"

Elrond's face became even grimmer, and his eyes turned sad.

"Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins."

Gandalf closed his eyes.

***

Elrond and Gandalf were both standing behind the glass door in the Priory Hospital of Roehampton, surveying the common area where the young patients usually spent time.

"Here they are," stated the former elf, and the old man followed his eyes.

A tall teenager and much too small child walked together inside, sides firmly pressed against each other. They looked nothing like the King Under the Mountain and Elf-Friend Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf realised with a jolt.

The older boy said something to the younger and they both huddled into a plump armchair, the younger one practically on the other's lap. They exchanged a couple of words and then Bilbo leaned into Thorin and put his head on his shoulder, closing eyes while the former dwarf's arms wound themselves around the slighter form, as if shielding him.

The boys seemed to be content just to sit like that, and Gandalf allowed himself start studying those figures closer.

Bilbo Baggins, his dear brave Bilbo, who had always been quick to smile and boss everyone around him, was a gaunt looking boy. Far too thin, with untidy hair and unhealthy parlour, which only made the dark shadows under his eyes more prominent. 'Dysphoria, self induced starvation,' the file said. Just by a single look at this angular face, the wizard knew that those diagnoses were right.

Thorin Oakenshield was also a pale shadow of his former self. Tall, all knees and elbows like any teenager at this age, with short cropped hair and a diagnosis of schizophrenia and a murder on his hands, and yet Gandalf had no doubts about the identity of the adolescence.

"I read his case. He claimed that he murdered Azog the Defiler."

Gandalf nodded. He read both files carefully, got school records, medical cards, every bit of information that he could obtain about the boys.

Apparently, the two of them have been suffering from their memories for almost three years, if the abrupt change in school records was anything to go by.

The doctors thought them to have mental illnesses. Obviously, the boys had mental issues. But just as obviously, at least to Gandalf and Elrond, they weren't insane.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, who is back. The Uni is hell, papers are hell, in short, la vida dura. But at least I do update.  
> I am still not entirely sure where this fic is going to head from now, so if you have suggestions, you are very welcome.

"Their parents hardly will be responsive should anyone come claiming that those boys are not their children, but echoes of long-gone warriors," Elrond calmly stated on their way back from Roehampton.

"I know that, we are in a wrong century," Gandalf snapped, irritated both with Elrond for stating something so obvious, and with himself, for even considering such an option.

Former elf's lips twitched. Of course, pointed-eared bastard could read him like a book.

"You are right, my friend. This is by far the wrong century for them to believe such a thing, even if it is true."

They kept driving in silence, Alfred at the wheel, and Gandalf on the passenger seat, slowly smoking his pipe.

They didn't approach the former dwarf and hobbit today, as they were afraid to break the fragile peace they found. Also there was a chance that if they revealed themselves, Thorin and Bilbo would simply refuse to let them go, and blow up the cover. After all, no one was supposed to know that one of best doctors at ThePriory Hospital North London hospital had same identity issues.

So now their best course of action was to simply try and devise a plan how to help them.

"If it was by me, I would move them out straight away," the psychiatrist said after a while. "Unfortunately we can't do that without the Collinses' and Tylers' concent. Even if they agreed, which is highly unlikely, what next would we do. The boys are confused, their memories are jumbled, they feel all the guilt and pain that they have lived through. They wouldn't be able to hold the parade before their parents, and their parents hold all the legal means. No, we cannot do this, cannot just throw them into another place without the beforehand preparations, without making it all believable for Collinses and Tylers."

"They are just children," Gandalf murmured. "We are helpless, until we come up with a way of sidestepping their supposed parents."

***

Doctor Henrikson scowled fiercely at the record files of Adam Collins and James Tyler. He just couldn't understand it. Neither of them ever met each other in their whole life, and yet, when Collins was first let into the common area and saw the Tyler boy, it was like they were two long-lost brothers. They instantly knew each other, and they opened up to each other more than to anyone in the hospital so far.

Yet, the troubling thing was that they apparently knew each other from their 'previous' lives, as they referred to them. Adam had referred to James as 'Bilbo' without James even having a chance to tell him his name, and vice versa, James calling Adam 'Thorin'.

Doctor Henrikson had yet to encounter such a case, and he was personally invested in finding out the cause of their mental states.

***

"My nephew had done great things," Bilbo quietly whispered into Thorin's bony shoulder. "Things that are by far greater than you and I could ever achieve."

"You must be proud of him," came just as quiet reply. They couldn't afford to be overheard, as the doctors were already snooping around, looking at them suspiciously and asking tricky questions. They just couldn't afford to be separated. Not again.

"It was I who had condemned him."

They often spoke of regrets and mistakes, guilt overtaking almost everything good and happy from their memories. Before they found each other, the flow of memories, sensations of past, emotions sometimes was too strong to handle. No one understood them, and they suffered from loneliness, sometimes not even believing they'd survive till the morning, so strong their feelings were. Yet, now they had each other to talk to, to share burdens and the darkest thoughts. Oftentimes it seemed that there were no walls between them, that the former dwarf and hobbit could understand each other from half a sentense. Other times they struggled with words, not finding the needed ones to express what they wanted to.

"How could I ever blame you for valuing Arkenstone that much, if I haven't parted with my ring for years?" the boy gasped for air, and instantly felt hands on his shoulders, gripping tightly, but not at all threateningly. Just grounding him down, not letting him slip into memories again. He reached forward, grabbing his King's elbows just as tightly, and breathing. In and out. In and out. He could do that.

The former dwarf didn’t say a word, just kept holding onto his shoulders. Today it was hard to find words. The medicine muddled his thoughts, but not enough to turn him into a blabbering idiot, who wouldn't know when it's better to say nothing instead of saying things he might regret later. And all he could say now where words that made no sense, that wouldn't help his dearest friend.

So instead he helped him breath.

***

"How long would it take to just wait till their respective treatments end?" The wizard implored, looking through the file again. Gandalf was many things, knew a great deal of information no one ever heard of, could fight things no mortal would stand against, but for the love of Valar he knew nothing of the science of psychiatry. For that was Elrond, who, in turn, was also studying the files of their subjects. Upon hearing Gandalf's question the men looked up.

"There is no win-win scenario if we do not interfere. Should they hold onto their memories, they most like wouldn't be let out for a very long time. Years, possibly. Should they forego their memories and embrace the treatment, well, there's a great chance of loosing them. The medicine they take are strong, my friend, and they take it when they shouldn't. It has potential to destroy their minds. Especially since they are still children."

Children. That one laid heavily in the wizard's stomach. However how hard he thought of a possible way to get Bilbo and Thorin out of the clinic, it all came down to laws. It was a remarkable thing, how many laws and rules humans had invented during their reign. Of course, they were all designed to bring peace and order, but Gandalf had little patience for them now when they wouldn't allow him help his friends. Well, one friend and one incredibly thick-headed king.

"How many of other reborn do you know?" Alfred asked out of nowhere. "Celebrían , and her name is Silvia now," a small smile flashed across his lips at the remembrance of his former wife and now girlfriend. "She's a surgeon in London at Bart's. I know that Tauriel, now Ginny, is a professional archer training for the upcoming Olympics. I am also very fairly that the head of Barclays is Durin the Third."

"And how would you know of wealthy bankers, friend?" Gandalf asked in a teasing voice and got a smirk of his efforts. Smirk, but no answer, since Alfred was just as evasive as Elrond used to be. So instead he turned back to the topic in hand.

"I have met many during my travels, some more then once. But for now, I can assure you that the head yager in Snowdonia National Park is Beorn, Éowyn is in MI-5 with her brother in, if I'm not mistaken, MI-6, Lúthien is an actress, Aragorn is serving and Galadriel works in NHS."

Alfred looked thoughtful when he answered.

"So we have a top banker, a surgeon and a NHS worker. I have to say, we could have worse odds. Now, at least, if we play our cards right, we just might helps our mutual friends."

"What do you have in mind?" Gandalf asked, even though he had a pretty good idea what the former elf was thinking of. And he wasn't disappointed.

"There was talk in my hospital for quiet some time already about installing a CAMHS, but it all went down to funding..."

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot about the abbreviations, so sorry. Here.  
> NHS - National Health Service  
> CAMHS - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services   
> MI 5 & 6 - British Security Services, Military Intelligence, Sections 5 & 5\. MI 5 is focused on focused on foreign threats, whilst MI 6 - on maintaining security within Britain. That's what I know form Wikipedia and TV series Spooks and Strike Back, so don't hold my words very high.


End file.
